Over And Up To God's Holy Mountain

A diverse group of lay and ordained ministers, including three school-age children (also ordained, though so far only by God Most High), we 20 St. John's pilgrims gathered this morning at LAX's Bradley International Terminal. This photo was taken just before the seasoned pilgrimage leader was gently reminded by security that photography isn't encouraged at the El Al check-in desk.

By the grace of God we'll take off at 1:15 this afternoon and arrive in Tel Aviv Wednesday afternoon, when we'll begin our drive up to Jerusalem by reciting one of humanity's most mysterious texts, Psalm 87 -- God's voice singing out of a primitive and warlike time into another (ours) that our differences with one another are imaginary, that we all come from and are bound for the place our creator loves most of all, a timeless city we are called to share:

On the holy mountain stands the city he has founded;
the LORD loves the gates of Zion
more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Glorious things are spoken of you,
O city of our God.

I count Egypt and Babylon among those who know me;
behold Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia:
in Zion were they born.

Of Zion it shall be said, "Everyone was born in her,
and the Most High himself shall sustain her."

The LORD will record as he enrolls the peoples,
"These also were born there."

The singers and the dancers will say,
"All my fresh springs are in you."

Singing Our Zion Song Again

Twenty pilgrims traveling under the auspices of St. John's Episcopal Church will gather at LAX this morning for a nonstop flight to Tel Aviv and the journey up to Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon. We are Ed, Cathy, Fr. Michael, Debbie, Cindy D., Pastor Lisa, Allana, Alexandra, Bob, Kathe, Steven, Brenna, Jerry, Cindy K., Christian, Shannon, Damian, Remy, Kathy, and Fr. John.

On Sunday morning at St. John's, we were commissioned by our 2009 and 2011 pilgrims and the whole congregation with this prayer:

God of Zion, who through his blessed Son called the people of God to take up their crosses and follow in Christ's Way: By our prayers today and in the days to come, in the name of Jesus Christ we commission and ask your merciful blessing on the pilgrims of St. John's Episcopal Church, who set their faces for Jerusalem on Tuesday. Prepare their hearts to be turned forever toward your holy city. Prepare their minds to be enlightened by new teaching and relationships. Prepare their feet for the steps down to the cave in Bethlehem, the rocky shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the rough cobblestones of the Via Dolorosa. Keep them safe and return them to us with spirits afire. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our LORD. Amen.

Between now and July 1, we'd be blessed if you would follow along with us here and on Facebook.

When A President Helps Save Millions

Americans are ambivalent about George W. Bush (shown here on a visit to Tanzania). Africans aren't, Jim Landers reports:

In Africa, he’s a hero.

“No American president has done more for Africa,” said Festus Mogae, who served as president of Botswana from 1998 to 2008. “It’s not only me saying that. All of my colleagues agree.”

AIDS was an inferno burning through sub-Saharan Africa. The American people, led by Bush, checked that fire and saved millions of lives.

People with immune systems badly weakened by HIV were given anti-retroviral drugs that stopped the progression of the disease. Mothers and newborns were given drugs that stopped the transmission of the virus from one generation to the next. Clinics were built. Doctors and nurses and lay workers were trained. A wrenching cultural conversation about sexual practices broadened, fueled by American money promoting abstinence, fidelity and the use of condoms.

“We kept this country from falling off the edge of a cliff,” said Mark Storella, the U.S. ambassador to Zambia. “We’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives. We’ve assisted over a million orphans. We’ve created a partnership with Zambia that gives us the possibility of walking the path to an AIDS-free generation. This is an enormous achievement.”

Bush remains active in African health. Last September, he launched a new program — dubbed Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon — to tackle cervical and breast cancer among African women. The program has 14 co-sponsors, including the Obama administration.

That He Should See No More Evil

My St. John's friend Andy Guilford took this photograph of a disconsolate savior in Oklahoma City, where the statue stands in a churchyard, its back to the memorial to victims of the 1995 terrorist bombing.

He Put A Donut In Our Tea Party

My blogging buddy Maarja Krusten, historian and former Nixon tapes archivist, says David Ferriero is the coolest archivist of the U.S. in history. Here's proof: He recently hosted a jelly-filled replay of the War of 1812, pitting great American donuts Dunkin' and Krispy Kreme against Canada's Tim Hortons.

Don't be comfited by the U.S.'s home town advantage. We frittered it away yet again. We didn't get Canada after winning the war (we probably should have; just sayin'), and now Tim Hortons has won the great taste test -- oddly enough, since the U.S. judges outnumbered Canada's two to one, literally. That really sticks in my cruller.

But donut holes are better than canon balls anytime, especially when the AOTUS capped the evening by screening his favorite movie, "Strange Brew." Ask most intellectuals to name their pick flick, and they'll say "Rashomon" or "Richard III." As inflexible, impractical, unimaginative ideology squeezes more and more joy out of our civic life (like if you dropped a phone book on a Boston cream), it's a blessing when top officials dare to be cheesy.

Still, I want a rematch. How about you? As Lady Gaga might say, show your bear claws, little monsters.

Schools Of Watergate

Richard Nixon's operatives -- especially Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Dwight Chapin, and Don Segretti -- are the southern California angle on Watergate, having learned their dirty tricks in their pretend politics at USC and UCLA. Clancy Segal, then a left-wing editor at UCLA's Daily Bruin, writes about a primitive era of gentile and Jewish fraternities; getting beaten up by frat boys for dating the wrong women, just like in "Animal House"; his jailhouse interview with Haldeman, when the disgraced former chief of staff candidly admitted his festering resentment of "Jewish liberals" on campus; and a fascinating moment when Alexander Butterfield, another Bruin, chose for whatever reason not to deny that he was a CIA plant in the White House, ordered to protect the agency from Nixon's interferences:

Tall, handsome and bronzed, Alex gave me that old Sigma Nu smile while refusing to deny, "Write it the way you see it, Clancy. Remember, there was nothing personal." Meaning, he played the game and Bob and John simply were collateral damage to a larger scheme.

Anna Another Thing On Watergate

Ken Hughes argues that Richard Nixon ordered a break-in at the Brookings Institution in 1971 not because of his rage over the leak of the Pentagon Papers during wartime, as I've always contended, but because he was worried about what his political opponents might've known about his effort to torpedo the Johnson administration's Vietnam peace process.

The Brookings break-in never occurred. Still, Hughes asserts somewhat dramatically that if the House Judiciary Committee had known about the Brookings tape segment in 1974, and it had led investigators to the Anna Chennault file (she told the South Vietnam they'd get a better deal under Nixon), the articles of impeachment drawn up against Nixon might have included treason (based on the law against private citizens interfering with official U.S. diplomacy).

Hughes says there's no evidence that presidential politics were behind Lyndon Johnson's ordering a bombing halt in Vietnam a few days before the 1968 election, when Nixon was running against Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey. About this, Nixon's advocates beg to differ -- for example, Conrad Black:

[P]erhaps the all-time nadir in American presidential-election ethics was achieved in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson tried to salvage the election for his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, with a completely imaginary claim of a peace breakthrough in the Vietnam talks a few days before the election. LBJ announced an enhanced bombing halt and more intensive talks in which the Viet Cong and the Saigon government would be “free to participate” (i.e., Saigon declined to attend since there had been no breakthrough).

So who did worse playing politics with war: The candidate or commander-in-chief?

Maarja Krusten reflects on Hughes' startling allegations here.

Presidents Are Acting Not Illegally More And More

When Richard Nixon told David Frost in April 1977, "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal," he was talking not about political burglaries and campaign dirty tricks (though his operatives did all that, too) but a leader's sovereign powers during wartime. That Ron Howard and his screenwriter, Peter Morgan, suggested otherwise in "Frost/Nixon" was one of the few disappointments in an otherwise fine movie. Continuing his argument, Nixon said:

[I]t has been...argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we’re all talking about.

Tom Campbell, Chapman University's law school dean, battled President Clinton over Kosovo when he was serving in Congress. He argues that when presidents grasp for broader foreign policy and war-making prerogatives, judges and Congress wax timid, and especially so since Sept. 11. On the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, John Dean, who turned on Nixon during the the Watergate investigations of 1973-74, says recent presidents have widened the realm of "not illegal" far more than 37. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Executive orders issued by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of Sept. 11 claimed power for the Oval Office to ignore U.S. laws and international treaties.

President Obama has retained some of those extraordinary wartime powers, and his use of drones to attack terrorist suspects has drawn accusations of international law violations.

"I don't think Richard Nixon, in his darkest hour, would have authorized torture," said Dean...

Rockin' Father's Day Eve At St. John's

In anticipation of Father's Day, the women of St. John's staged a boisterous lunch for 40 men of our church this afternoon. In the colors of her beloved Padres, Melinda Freese realized her vision of leading us in "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." DJ Gomer, Linda Allport, Melinda, and Joan Haneishi served heaps upon heaps of what could only be described as guy food -- KFC, hot dogs, chili, nachos, and beer. DJ's Duane brought along his signed letter from John Wooten. The St. John's folk circle, having embraced its inner seventies bar band, announced it was giving the name Chrysostom Rust a beta test and swang into "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Peaceful Easy Feeling," and "Wagon Wheel." Other possible names on omni-instrumentalist Jeff Allport's list were the Ill-Eagles and Con Dios Junction (our church being located on Via Con Dios). And yes, bishop, that's a Heineken on the amp.

Hardball

Nixon's just a .277-batting DH on the all-Watergate team at the New York Times (where it must've been a slow day at the sports desk).